Re: [at-l] Taking you to the Austrian School (was: Jokes)

["Thomas McGinnis" <tmcginnis@ucclan.state.in.us>]

Actually has Trail content.
>>> "Malcolm Fuller" <mfuller@somtel.com> 04/05/00 08:48AM 
> On the practical level, I disagree, having concluded the
> totality of disutility imposed by "prejudicial" capital
> owners on the rest of society exceeds the disutility imposed
> on them by holding them "responsible" for certain (non-
> prejudicial hiring) performance requirements...

Disutility? According to whose values? Even if it's true,
what business is it of yours, or of "society?"
#### Hoo-boy. We're back to that "collective action" thing about whether and when you can decide to make yourself a member of a group, and when you can decide to "opt out." I prefer a more concrete, "lifetime membership" thing, like US citizenship, as a more efficient vehicle for undertaking collective action than more temporary ad hoc arrangements — "fair weather" citizens want to have all the parks, but none of the taxes. Sooooo, you ask "Whose values?" Mine. (Good as any!) You ask of propriety, I answer "Society's!" and Society's by virtue of our shared membership in it. If my values are shared by Society on a given issue, I'll see no problem in how Society handles the issue; if my values are at odds, I *will* see a problem. I can then try to change Society, and maybe I'll be successful, and maybe I won't. But in a collective, you gots to take the good with the bad. To go back to the old thread, we have an Appalachian Trail insured for our children because of the sometimes distasteful, for some "heavy-handed", involvement of a government with "police powers" over lands, including "eminent domain" and condemnation. (Trail Related!!!!!! Forgive the droning writing, please. I'm working on a sleep deprivation project.)


The fruits of one's labor is certainly property, as is
one's own body, but that [doesn't] give you a right to a job that
utilizes another's property.
### Absolutely correct. What I wrote [sorry, irretrievably nuked] was incorrect, and I had red flags going off when I wrote it. Oops. Dang. But it didn't wash, and your response above is right on the mark. In a free market. "Working" free market. Efficiently working free market economy. Yaddayaddayadda.


That doesn't change my indented meaning. To this minarchist,
the only role of government with respect to labor relations
is to enforce the contracts, formed out of mutual consent,
between labor and management.
### Again, with an ideal world as a starting point, I absolutely agree. But I *do* go further and say that there *is* a role for collective action beyond market failure affecting property rights. I might be open to saying that property rights would be a role first among equals, but provision of "public goods" — goods/services which benefit society beyond an individual's singular contribution — such as the whole of the 2150 mile Appalachian Trail — well, I think that's a worthy undertaking, too.
### It seems, then, on reflection, that you and I disagree on not just where exactly to draw the line (between what's a proper role for government and what's not) but when to even ask the question.
### Now, I know there's some soft white underbelly in my arguments (or faulted logic, as above{!}), but I have to point out that

1) This is an Appalachian Trail list, of which *you* are a member of your own free will, and
2) You have yet to respond to the implicit oxymoron of your abiding, longstanding interest in this, the greatest collective effort at public recreation ever accomplished in the history of the country (and annually renewed and recertified as such through the blood, sweat and gear of thousands of volunteers up the length of the east coast).

So tell me, How can you be *for* an Appalachian Trail, but *agin* the government that's moved it (by collected request) into a protected status?

(Yes, I might have shifted gears some. Was up late. "Running on Emptyyyyyy" and all that. Cut me a little.)

> (Libertarian means never having to say you're sorry for your
> government.)
(Who said this? Oh yeah — me. Very smart.)

Sloetoe
(Communist in Training)

It was Churchill who said 
"Those who are conservatives in their youth have no heart; and
Those who are liberal in their maturity have no brains."

Would that I enjoy an extended middle age.


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